Tag Archives: shopping center

Amazon Books and the art at University Village, Seattle

imageAmazon.com went online selling books in 2005, a brief 10 years ago. This past Tuesday, November 3, 2015, they opened their first bricks and mortar bookstore. It has several unique features.

  1. All of the books face cover out.
  2. Each book has a little card in front of it that says a little something about it’s Amazon reviews.
  3. The prices fluctuate as they do online. To find out the price, the customer uses the Amazon app to scan the book’s barcode.
  4. The store also sells other Amazon technology which customers can use.
  5. The record of the sale has appeared on my amazon account.
  6. And there was a line to get in!

There is currently only this one Amazon Books location in University Village in Seattle.

While I was there I strolled around the entire shopping area, which was very busy! Aooarently dogs of all size and shapes are allowed in all of the stores, but not restaurants or the grocery store. I snapped a couple of shots of the outside art.

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Starbucks at Green Firs, the story continues

photo(3)The new Starbucks in the Green Firs Shopping Center is at the site of the former Shari’s Restaurant. When this Starbucks opened, the smaller Starbucks in the center closed and of course the employees moved over.

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Batteries Plus +

 

 

Not every new place of the day can be culturally, historically and/or architecturally interesting. Sometimes it is just practical. And so soon before the holidays, nothing says practical like a battery store.

http://www.batteriesplus.com/

4027 Tacoma Mall Blvd (Rainier Place Shopping Center)
STE M, Tacoma, WA 98409
(253) 476-2666

A Third Place, The Library Connection

I was delighted to find a well used public library at the Crossroads Shopping Center in Bellevue today. Everything about the library clicked for me. The good things include the location in a busy enclosed shopping, the hours (Sunday!), the colorful, art filled decor, the materials selection (lots of foreign language books and books for the kids) and plenty of computers.

It’s worth noting that there is also a King County Library Connection at the South Center Mall and that many of the other free standing, more traditional libraries are open on Sunday.

http://www.kcls.org/crossroads/

This much used library branch made me think about the importance of having community space. Ray Oldenburg discussed this need for community area, which he called Third Places in his book The Great Good Place.